CADE's initial investigation focused on Google's automated collection of journalistic content and its display in search results.
Brazil regulators have recently approved a deeper probe into Google's news content use.
This comes as on Thursday (April 23), Brazil's antitrust watchdog CADE approved a recommendation to deepen investigations into the use of journalistic content by Alphabet's Google, which would assess potential abuse of the company's dominant market position.
CADE's members backed a proposal from its interim chief Diogo Thomson de Andrade to return the case to its general superintendence for formal administrative proceedings, citing the evolution of Google's conduct since the 2019 inquiry began.
The case began following CADE's 2019 determination to examine competitive conditions in search and news markets.
Initial investigation focused on Google's automated collection of journalistic content and its display in search results.
CADE's general superintendence had previously recommended shelving the case for lack of sufficient evidence of violations.
De Andrade's new analysis noted Google's conduct evolved with AI generative features that synthesize information directly in search interfaces.
It highlighted potential structural dependency of news publishers on Google's search mechanisms for audience reach.
De Andrade pointed out this could constitute exploitative abuse through extracting value from third-party content without proportional compensation.
Diogo Thomson has previously pointed to the “asymmetry in bargaining power” between platforms and publishers, noting that journalism should be viewed as a socially significant activity that influences the quality of the information environment.
He also stated that the central economic issue is no longer only the remuneration of the existing stock of works, but also the preservation of the future flow of high-quality data, without which AI itself tends to deteriorate. In his view, the 2024 launch of Google’s artificial intelligence tool, which displays a summary generated from multiple sources at the top of search results, added a new layer to the case, representing an evolution of the logic of “scraping.”
Source: Reuters
